Who wanted to criticize L’Osservatore Romano
Facts, names, hypotheses and suggestions. The italics of Andrea Mainardi
“The Pope speaks of peace, but …”. With this title, L’Osservatore Romano, released on the afternoon of March 28, first sends an editorial that does what an editorial must do: provoke questions. Patience if he does not complete the other task that seems necessary. Not to give answers. The space is already largely occupied by talk analysts. But that of tracing a path, outlining a precise objective, an editorial from Oltretevere would help to clarify ideas a little.
HERE THE EDITORIAL DE L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO
Complaining, however, is ungenerous. Ultimately, L’Osservatore does it, from the heart of a pontificate that since 2013 has invited us to reflect on the four guiding criteria that the publisherFrancis lists and illustrates in the programmatic document of his pontificate, the exhortation Evangelii gaudium. From 2013. “Time is superior to space” is the first of the four. In 2016, in Amoris Laetitia, the Pope recalls that with that principle he means that “it is a question of generating processes rather than dominating spaces”. He wishes “to reiterate that not all doctrinal, moral or pastoral discussions must be resolved with interventions of the magisterium”. So an aversive “but” and a little vagueness don’t hurt. He helps the processes, maybe he stimulates parrhesia. Or perhaps no longer
writes Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Department for Communication: “’The Pope speaks against rearmament, but … The Pope is the Pope, but … The Pope can only say what he says, but …’. There is always a ‘but’ that in many embarrassed comments accompanies the unequivocal no to war pronounced by Francis, to contextualize it and weaken it. Not being able to interpret the words of the Bishop of Rome in the intended sense, unable in any way to ‘bend’ them in support of the accelerated rearmament race following the war of aggression unleashed by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine, then they elegantly distance themselves from them , saying that yes, the Pope can only say what he says but then politics must decide. And the policy of Western governments is deciding to increase the already many billions to be spent on new and increasingly sophisticated weapons ”.
Who are the objectives of the editorial
Who robs the words of the Pontiff from “appeals of circumstance”
Then, that criticism of the commentators who according to L’Osservatore, argue: “the Pope can only say what he says but then it must be politics to decide”.
It is not Francesco who refuses timely political comments so as not to interfere .
Replica Tornielli : “Francesco’s no to war, a radical and convinced no, has nothing to do with so-called neutrality and can be presented as a biased position or motivated by political-diplomatic calculations “.
But he wands himself. Who
Because the suspects flock. The Observer’s appeal is not fully understood: and to politics or to the gazettieri Or
to both
categories of GDP in the purchase of weapons, as a response to what is happening now ”. He called it “Madness!”. Italian journalists immediately interpreted the sentence as a criticism of the Mario Draghi government . They questioned the premier, who from Brussels answered a question from the reporter from Avvenire who asked for an account of defense expenses: “2% of GDP for military expenses
And a commitment made by the Italian government in 2006, sixteen years ago, always confirmed by the governments since then, without major discussions ”. The Pope is ashamed. Draghi replies, and the twitter of Palazzo Chigi resumes:
#EUCO, Draghi: I express my and the government’s gratitude to the Holy Father. We are looking for peace, the other European leaders are looking for it. I too will have talks with Putin. We are not at war to follow a war destiny, we all want peace
– Palazzo_Chigi (@Palazzo_Chigi) March 25, 2022 So Draghi
doesn’t seem to be the target. At least not just him. Anyway he pulls himself out.
So and Joe Biden , president of the state leader of the Atlantic coalition that for years, not days, has been asking EU member states to do more economically
And who is now imposing new sanctions on Russia . weapons, other sanctions, other political-military alliances, but another approach, a different way of governing the world
” Draghi specifies, however, that the increase in spending on rearmament is not for NATO, but” takes place within the European defense ”which is“ fundamental for achieving political integration ”. “The guarantee of a European defense and the guarantee that we will always be allies, we will never go to war again”.
So it’s the newspaper’s fault!
Avvenire, which directly has nothing to be confused with the Holy See, as a newspaper of the CEI, on the 26th had already titled: “Pope Francis shouts against weapons, but the media (not all) snub him”. He takes into account the titles and the space given by newspapers and TV to the words of Francesco . As a comment, the opinion of the secretary of the Italian Left, Nicola Fratoianni . Confirmation: even many printed newspapers have “silenced, obscured, canceled the cry of Pope Francis”. Avvenire does not fail to remind its readers: “Il Messaggero, and Il Giornale, completely snub the question, not considering it worthy of even a single line on the inside pages”. Francishas revealed in the past that he generally leafs through only two newspapers: his Observer and Il Messaggero. That he did not like the silencing to the point of asking the observer to make it known urbi et orbi
. And if the question were entirely internal,
L’Osservatore writes: “In this war there are the aggressors and there are the attacked. There are those who attacked and invaded, killing defenseless civilians, hypocritically masking the conflict under the make-up of a special military operation; and there are those who strenuously defend themselves by fighting for their land ”. In fact, it took a few days for the Vatican media since February 24 to name things exactly. On March 12, Torniellisigns an unequivocal editorial. He writes: “The tragic consequences of this dirty war in Ukraine, hypocritically defined as a ‘special military operation’, are under the eyes of the world, with their load of pain, suffering, tortured innocent bodies, killed children, divided families. , of millions of refugees forced to leave everything to escape the bombs, of cities transformed into battlefields, of houses gutted and burned. Not to mention the wounds of the hearts, which will take years to heal ”; calling the war “Russian army aggression in Ukraine”. To the point of challenging the mystical justification of the conflict according to the Patriarch of Moscow, Kiril.“Hate and violence cannot be cloaked in theories on the ‘clash of civilizations’, they do not have to do with fictitious religious motivations. This time on both fronts there are men and women who share the same Christian faith and the same baptism. In the face of the havoc caused by the aggression of the Russian army in Ukraine, and the escalation of war it has triggered, with the risk of dragging the world into a nuclear conflict ”. Two days earlier L’Osservatore had opened its front page with a title that could not have been more precise: “Special military operation”. The definition imposed by Putin , with in the background an image of the bombing of the Mariupol hospital, for children and their mothers giving birth under the bombs.
Immediately after also Francesco. At the Angelus on Sunday 13 March he said of “unacceptable armed aggression”, and on Sunday 20, he will say “of violent aggression against Ukraine”.
Not a few had asked to say it clearly right away. He took his time. Invoking peace from the first moment, but leaving the judgments on the parties to a second step.
It does not seem that anyone can honestly misunderstand the Vatican no to increases in military spending. Like the yes to the duty to help the attacked, even militarily. Unless you want to leave it to defend itself against tanks and hypersonic missiles with stones and homemade Molotov cocktails.
One cannot fail to observe how the generous use of the adverse conjunction contested by the Observer against the words of Francis, can be found in many ecclesial discourses. Of a vagueness where there is room for a bit of everything. Of course – God forbid – L’Osservatore reminds us that the Catechism “contemplates the right to legitimate defense. And “however, he lays down conditions, specifying that the use of weapons must not cause evils and disorders more serious than the evil to be eliminated, and recalls that in the evaluation of this condition ‘the power of modern means of destruction’ plays a great role”. But – always the but – adds the newspaper: “Who can deny that humanity is today on the brink precisely because of the escalation of the conflict and the power of the“ modern means of destruction
”. As Francesco
said on Sunday: “War cannot be something inevitable: we must not get used to war! Instead, we must convert today’s indignation into tomorrow’s commitment. Because, if we come out of this story as before, we will all be guilty in some way. Faced with the danger of self-destruction, humanity understands that the time has come to abolish war, to erase it from man’s history before it is he who erases man from history ”. “But”, a commitment “of tomorrow”, not while bombs and missiles also make it impossible to create a safe humanitarian corridor. The stop and repeated hashtag for Francesco . And not because he is Pope. It must be for everyone. First of all, Putin and Kiril ‘s Russia .
Shut up their weapons, the Pope invokes. Not in two hours, immediately. But the literary reading, the hermeneutics of images, often suggestive, used in ten years of pontificate in the circles around the Pope, does not pay due homage to the complexity of reality. At best, it provides slogans to talk-goers, ignites sterile debates between dust-strapped political commentators to stage verbal brawls.
The whole question is very complex. Tangled. Francis himselfon November 26, 2019, on the return flight from Japan, he admitted that he had studied the plan of an encyclical dedicated to peace and non-violence. But to have frozen everything: “Yes – he said replying to reporters – the project is there, but the next Pope will do it. There are projects that are in the drawers …: one on peace, for example, and there, it is maturing, and when the time comes I will… But I still don’t feel ripe for an encyclical on non-violence, I have to pray more and seek the way ”.
The problem is that if “it is a question of generating processes rather than dominating spaces” – in a world already full of processes – the risk is not that the sheep ends up getting lost and becoming a donkey in the midst of sounds.
